What is a scientist?

This week your children have been learning that scientists are not men in stuffy lab coats, but that there is a scientist in every one of us!

We started the off by reading one of my favorite authors Julia Donaldson. The children loved her stories: The Gruffalo and The Snail and the Whale. The latter is a story of the little snail who saves a beached whale. It was the perfect way for our kids to start thinking about the importance of written expression.

We continued our adventure with snails on Wednesday when our big buddies came to read with us in the afternoon. The children sat with their Big Buddies and researched important facts about snails. All of the research they collected will go into their science notebooks.

On Thursday we made the covers to our science notebooks, using yellow and then blue finger paint. The covers became delightful shades of green. In the afternoon your children made snail puppets and we read the story, Snail: Where are You!"

We used our knowledge of snails for mathematics too! The children made a comparison chart of how many eyes,tails, heads, and shells one, two and three snails would have.

Your children amaze me with their confidence and wit!

Next week we will continue to discover all sorts of new things that live in shells.

Here is a list of the books we enjoyed this week-

Nonfiction Books
Bulhozer, Theres, 1987, “Life of the Snail” Carolrhoda Books Inc. Lucerne, Switzerland
Dorling Kindersley book, “What’s Inside? Shells,” Scholastic Edition: New York
Fowler, A. 1999, “A Snail’s Pace” Children’s Press: Canada
Green, J. 2004, “Nature’s Children: Snails,” Groller: Danbury, Connecticut
Holmes, K. 1998, “Snails,” Bridgestone Books: Mankato, Minnesota
Murray, P. 1998, “Snails,” The Children’s World, Inc:
Pascoe, E. and Kuhn, D. 1999, “Nature’s Closeup: Snails and slugs,” Balckbirch Press, Inc: Connecticut
Pyers, G. 2005, “Snails, Up Close,” Raintree: Chicago, Illinois
Ross, M. E. 1996, “Snailology,” Carolrhoda Books: Lucerne, Switzerland

Fiction Books
Ungerer, T. 1962, “Snail, Where are you?” Blue Apple:
McGuirk, L. 2003, “Snail Boy,” Candlewick Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Wadell, M. 2003, “Hi, Harry! The Moving Story of how One Slow Tortoise Slowly Made a Friend,” Candlewick press: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Donaldson, J and Scheffler A. 2003, “The Snail and the Whale,” MacMillan Children’s Books: London

A King's cake for me!

Today your kindergartners took an exciting adventure to France and the home of Puss n' Boots.



The kindy's used magnifying glasses to inspect bird's eye view post cards and they found out several interesting things. They saw color. They saw patterns. They found Puss n' Boots.



We read several versions of the Puss n' Boots, including the Caldecott award winning edition. Marcellino ExhibitPuss in Boots"

Your children practiced making jewelled patterns on their crowns and wore their to our afternoon party. Where we ate cake with our best manners!



We finished our day by finding something else that was hidden. We found two little garden gnomes hiding in our King's Cake.



Please be sure to check out the beautiful study of ordinary shapes your children completed. They are displayed in the main hallway.